Guides
Export your LinkedIn connections to Excel or to a CRM
LinkedIn exports your 1st degree connections from Settings & Privacy, under Data privacy, with “Get a copy of your data”. The connections file gives each one’s first name, last name, profile URL, company, position and connection date. Email is only there when the person lets their connections see it: expect a mostly empty column.
Facts checked on October 6, 2026
01What the connections file contains
LinkedIn's help center, checked on October 6, 2026, describes the file in one sentence: first and last name, public profile URL, email address, company, position and connection date, for all 1st degree connections. Each item has its limits, and they decide what the file is good for.
First and last name
- What you get
- As the person typed them
- The limit
- Extended scripts (Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew) are not supported, per LinkedIn
Profile URL
- What you get
- The public profile address
- The limit
- The only reliable key: it does not change with the job
Email address
- What you get
- Only if the person lets connections see it
- The limit
- Most rows stay empty
Company and position
- What you get
- The current job shown on the profile
- The limit
- A snapshot on export day, not a history
Connection date
- What you get
- The day you connected
- The limit
- Written in English in the file, check it at import
What is missing matters as much. 2nd and 3rd degree connections cannot be exported, as LinkedIn states. Messages are not in the connections file; they belong to the full archive, among many other files. Phone numbers are not there either.
02Requesting the export, step by step
- 1
Open Settings & Privacy
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then Settings & Privacy.
- 2
Go to Data privacy
In the left menu, then under “How LinkedIn uses your data”, click Get a copy of your data.
- 3
Choose what you want
You can tick specific files or request the larger archive, which holds connections, messages and account history.
- 4
Request the archive
Click Request archive.
- 5
Wait for the email
It goes to your primary email address. LinkedIn lists connections among the data available within 48 hours. The download stays open for 72 hours.
03The file, once unzipped
Connections arrive in a CSV file with English headers: First Name, Last Name, URL, Email Address, Company, Position, Connected On. The file may open with a few lines of notes before those headers. A spreadsheet shows them at the top; a careless import takes them for the first record.
- In Excel, open the file through Data then From Text/CSV, in UTF-8 : accented names stay readable.
- The URL column holds the profile address, not the company website. A tool that guesses columns may take it for a website.
- The Company column is free text. Two connections at the same employer may have spelled it two ways.
- Connected On is an English style date with the month spelled out. Check it in the preview before importing it as a date.
04Importing LinkedIn connections into Kasar
The Kasar CSV import skips preamble lines above the real headers and detects encoding on its own. It is open on every plan. Three settings make the difference between an imported file and a useful one.
- 1
Map URL to the contact LinkedIn field
This is the setting that matters. The LinkedIn profile is part of the contact identity rule in Kasar, along with email and phone: a capture from the extension finds the record instead of creating it again, and so does a second import, provided you pick the “Skip” or “Update” strategy. The default strategy, “Create”, creates every row.
- 2
Turn Company into a company
Choose Relation to companies, matching on name. Missing companies are created and linked. Spelling variants are merged later in the Duplicates module.
- 3
Position goes to job title
The title stays on the contact. It dates from export day: capturing the profile later with the extension enriches the existing record.
- 4
Decide what to do with Connected On
Create a “Connected on” date field if the age of the relationship helps you prioritize, otherwise ignore the column.
- 5
Put the import in a list
Add every imported record to a “LinkedIn network” list. Filter it by title or company to pick who to reach out to.
05Turning the list into prospects
A network of several thousand connections is not something you reach out to in bulk. Filter the “LinkedIn network” list by title, keeping the roles that buy what you sell, then by company, keeping those that look like your customers. The connections you keep go into a new, shorter list that you review record by record.
That list becomes the starting point of a sequence: LinkedIn first, since it is the channel you already share with these people, then email for those whose address was in the file. The sequence stops as soon as the person replies, and the reply lands on their record, in the Kasar inbox.
Before you start the import
- The URL column is mapped to the LinkedIn profile, not to a website.
- Company becomes a relation to companies, with missing ones created.
- Imported records join a dedicated list.
- Connected On is checked in the preview, or ignored.
- Counting on the Email Address column to reach your whole network.
If your connections are also in your Google address book, import both files, the second one with the “Update” strategy: as soon as a shared key exists, email, phone or LinkedIn profile, records complete each other instead of doubling up. With the default strategy, “Create”, you would get duplicates. The guide on exporting Gmail contacts covers the other half.
Frequently asked questions
Because LinkedIn only exports a connection’s address if they allowed their connections to see or download it. It is a privacy setting each member controls, not a flaw in the export. The file is still useful: the profile URL is enough to identify the person.
LinkedIn lists connections among the data available within 48 hours, and mentions minutes for a targeted request. The link is emailed to your primary address. The archive stays downloadable for 72 hours.
No. LinkedIn's help center states the export only covers 1st degree connections. To track someone who is not a connection yet, add their profile to the CRM from the Kasar Chrome extension.
Yes, it is a LinkedIn feature open to every member for their own data. The file holds personal data about your connections: do not share it beyond the people who need it, and only import what you intend to use.
Sources
Every fact on this page can be checked on the official page below, read on the date shown.
- LinkedIn, Export connections from LinkedIn · read on October 6, 2026
- LinkedIn, Download your account data · read on October 6, 2026